Adventures and observations of an everyday goddess in La La Land.

August 31, 2013

I ran into one of my next-door neighbors today for the first time. I could swear her curious look said, "There's that girl who plays Creep by Radiohead just a little excessively."

Alright, I'm probably making that up in my head, but her look certainly didn't say, "There's that girl who has all that fantastic sex with her husband all the time" either. I'm having issues with my 40s.

I know I'm only 2 years in, but I can't get a grasp. I feel unsure, unsettled, frustrated. My 40s feel a hell of a lot like my 20s, truth be told. And all I can think about that is, damn I hope my 50s feel like my 30s, 'cause my 30s were pretty awesome until I got laid off.

In the meantime, I keep putting one foot in front of the other, trying to hit my stride.

And then I made a playlist. Five songs that scream my 40s to me, 2 years in.

Soul's On Fire - Big Sky

Creep - Radiohead

The Fear - Lily Allen

Pork and Beans - Weezer

I Am Not A Robot - Marina & the Diamonds

It maybe that I'm going for 40 songs about 40 before I'm done, 'cause I've already added Sail by AWOLNATION and I Don't Want To Be Alone by Billy Joel (from the greatest Billy Joel album EVER, Glass Houses - If you don't own it, go buy it now).

Got any more for me? I can't figure my 40s out for the life of me, but I can listen, and I can be, and here I am.

July 03, 2013

I turned 42 last week, and I'm not sure what to make of that. I'm obviously open about my age, but when my friend Jane from MidLifeBloggers said on my Facebook, "Ain't the 40s great?", it felt weird. There's no denying I'm there, but I don't have any of the big things I don't care about - house, kids - nor any of the big things I do care about - profitable directing career, partner. Add to that the fact that I decided upon arriving in Los Angeles to whenever possible consider my life and my decisions as though I was 10 years younger than I am, and that I don't dye my gray hair, and you've got one somewhat chaotic 42-year-old.

I do think it's a pretty cool number (I like numbers divisible by 3), and I was happy to be having my Douglas Adams birthday. 42 being the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything, according to The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. 42 feels better than 40. 40 was fun, but it felt surprising to be there, if birthdays that come every year can ever feel surprising.

I feel wiser at 42 than ever before, at least when I'm not feeling completely clueless, as though everything I've learned has abandoned me. We never lose the ability to be a dumbass, I think.

My year this year has turned out to have the theme of "patience."

Patience in this context is not patience in the sense of waiting for something to happen or for something to go away. Patience, like all of the far-gone actions, takes place in the present moment. Patience here means not pushing our experience away, whether it be pleasurable or painful. The discomfort of pain arouses aggression in the sense that we want to push it away. Patience is the opposite of aggression. It is nonaggression, which means experiencing whatever is present and not rejecting it. -Moh Hardin, A Little Book of Love

This is definitely at the forefront of my journey these days. I have been enjoying many moments, even as forward movement on the things that are important to me feels painfully stagnant. As though I am caught in a delightful and very, very thick mud bath.

Here's some progress: I don't want children. That's taken 42 years to say, so straightforwardly.

Because for as long as I can remember, there is this thing I was taught and internalized long ago. That women naturally want children, and that someday I would wake up, change my mind, and regret. There was a clock, and it was ticking, even if I couldn't hear it.

These days, even the concept of that series of events makes little sense to me. That I would regret instead of honoring my choices and accepting my life in any given day, even if something inside me had changed.

I don't want children, and when I think about the fact that I've spent my entire life giving energy to the thought that magically one day that would change - well, I spent one moment wondering how life would have been different without that constant caveat. How would a honest and straightforward acceptance and communication of this fact have effected my love life and my career? How does this internalized message about my life and my value as a woman continue to affect me? Yet, it is what it is. We grow when we are ready.

And, more than ever before, I am free. Our biological clocks will do what they will, but I no longer believe in a clock that will make me suddenly want to be a mother more than I want to be a director, and make me look at my life's work, such that it is at any given point, and regret that I never had something that I didn't want in the first place.

Directing is what gives my life meaning. That's who I am, even if my projects remain small and far between.

...we can discover this meaning in life in three different ways: (1) by creating a work or doing a deed; (2) by experiencing something or encountering someone; and (3) by the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering. -Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

Some believe that a statement like Viktor Frankl's above, doesn't fully apply to women. Because, men are full persons, and women are women. The rules are different for us, some think.

But, I am a person, and I was immensely gratified to read this statement of the breadth of ways we find meaning in life, the many options we have as humans. And I am a person with a very full life that has no room or desire to raise children. I live my life for the opportunities to create films, and web series, and in my dreams, television or features. Big, action packed features that cause giant billboards to go up, and viewer's hearts to race.

I don't dream of the pitter patter of little feet, I dream of the day when I have one job that is directing I can fully immerse myself in, and I cherish the opportunities to work my ass off directing while holding down a full-time office job, because if that's how it has to be, then I just have to make the choices I can, and gather all my knowledge and stamina and passion and make it happen.

April 25, 2013

For a while, I couldn't quite put my finger on why. It's rather treacly and contrived, which I find unpleasant, but just this morning I realized that what really pokes at me is that as I watch this video, particularly towards the end, it's just a whole lot of emotion and energy about looks. How a women thinks she looks. How other people think she looks. Women. Looks. Looks. Women. It's too much.

I care about how I look, but I care a whole hell of a lot more about how I feel. How my body works and how it feels while it's working. How it feels to me and how it feels to others.

I'm really focused on losing weight right now and getting more physically fit. A strong 25% of that is that I want to fit in my clothes and my bathing suit and look good. But 75% of that is that how my body feels right now is uncomfortable. I don't like how it feels when my little beer belly hangs over my underwear. I don't like that my pants are tight. (And I hate shopping for pants!) I don't like grocery bags and laundry feeling heavy. I love how tight abs feel. I love how strength feels. I love how it feels to be able to do all the things I want to.

Similarly, I worry how others perceive my gray hair, and the effects of that on my life, but the winning factor is that most days my hair feels fabulous to the touch. It's strong and healthy. I don't worry about it making me feel old because I'm 41 years old and this is the hair that grows out of my head. So in objective reality, it can only make me look exactly 41. It's 41-year-old hair.

Oh, is 41 "old"? Well, I'll let you know when it feels like it.

Now, one of my favorite physical attributes is my breasts. They don't look remotely like the women you see in magazines, but I gotta tell ya, they feel fantastic. So I don't really spend any mental energy at all worrying about what they're supposed to look like, and for the record, they can each hold a pencil. While feeling fantastic.

I don't buy clothes that look good but aren't comfortable.

I don't eat healthy food that isn't delicious.

I don't make decisions that don't feel right in my gut.

Since I started this post hating on a Dove video, I'll give you one more example. I never used shower gel before I did a paid post for Dove Body Wash. Now, my shower always hosts a bottle (yes, of Dove). Why? Because now my skin feels soft all the time. The other day I got a pedicure (yes, because I like my toes to look pretty), and I saw the woman feel my feet and choose the softer side of the sander. That's what it's about for me. Feel is always going to trump look.

Have you seen the Men's Parody video of the Dove Sketch Video?

Honestly, the two videos together just kinda make me feel sad. It made me wonder if men did the second sketch in the women's video, how would that turn out? And then, I gotta let that go because again, it's just too much focus on looks. I honestly believe that ultimately attraction is substantially about feeling for most people. How do you feel when you're around the person? How do they feel to you? In your gut and in your arms.

At the end of the day, most of us care to varying degrees about what we look like. There's nothing wrong with wanting to look our best. I want to look my best.

But how we define that, and how we let society define that for us, is ultimately up to us.

October 30, 2011

This means that I traverse the length of Burbank twice daily on either Magnolia Boulevard or Burbank Boulevard. Last week was my first week, and as I traveled along at 35/40 miles an hour, I watched many cars pass me by. This did not bother me one bit, because a few years ago in Burbank I got a speeding ticket for going 50 on one of those roads where the speed limit is 35 mph.

The first thing I thought of when I thought of my new commute was, I'm sure as heck not getting another speeding ticket in Burbank, and I need to be extra careful if I'm going to be driving across it twice a day.

See, the configuration of Magnolia Boulevard and Burbank Boulevard remind me of Glades Road and Palmetto Park Road in Boca Raton, where I drove for many years. Driving across Burbank feels like driving across Boca, in a way, and those roads have a nice 45 mph speed limit.

Personally, I still think the 35 mph speed limit on Magnolia and Burbank is too slow.

But the cop that pulled me over was super friendly and polite. And clearly explained that despite what I might think, it's pretty dangerous to go 50 mpg on Magnolia and Burbank. Complete with examples of recent accidents. And I have to admit, no one parks along Glades and Palmetto the way they do here.

I didn't contest my - rather expensive - speeding ticket. I don't hate the city of Burbank. And I adjusted my driving habits.

Driving to and from work this past week got me thinking about my upcoming appeal to the Superior Court about my MRCA Photo Enforced Stop Sign Ticket. And how - unlike my experience in Burbank - I now feel nothing but negative feelings about Temescal Canyon Park where I got it.

See, when you fight a ticket - or really any injustice - people come out of the woodwork to tell you to just settle down and take your medicine. Meanwhile, the MRCA points to a decrease in people running their stop signs as proof of (at least) effectiveness. But is that really their goal? And is this really the best way to go about it?

I know it doesn't matter to the MRCA that I'll never step foot on their property again and how I now feel about their parks.

But maybe it should, because had I been stopped immediately and given a ticket by a uniformed employee, as required by California Public Resources Code 5786.17, and had that ticket been $100 or less, as required by California Government Code 53069.4, I would have learned my lesson, and I would have paid my ticket and moved on, and I would still go hiking at Temescal.

Perhaps said uniformed employee could even have taken the opportunity to educate me and have a dialogue the way the Burbank officer did.

Instead, a lawyer for the MRCA will testify and show evidence that I ran the stop sign. He and everyone else in the court will be having a normal day, somewhere they go all the time to do their jobs. I will concede that I did indeed run the stop sign and will attempt to argue that the ticket and the fee break the laws I mentioned above. All while having a totally new experience and having no representation.

I do think I have a chance - I mean, I read the laws myself and it seems pretty clear to me - but I suspect that there's a high probability that my inexperience with court will mean I don't win my case. It's still important to me to try, because I feel very strongly that the MRCA Photo Enforced Stop Sign program is unethical, illegal, a bald-faced money-making scheme, and flat-out mean.

I also think that it creates negative energy around the parks system, but I won't be arguing that in court.

June 20, 2011

I currently drive a 1994 Toyota Corolla with 220,000 miles, collision insurance, and a salvaged registration, for which I paid dearly. For me, collision insurance has always been a no-brainer. I have a $250 deductible, too, because I don't have any savings, and frequently, no available credit, either. If I get into an accident, I need the money from the insurance, because I don't have any other resources.

When I got into an accident in March, however, I learned all about "totaling" and "salvaged registration." These two concepts together meant that the insurance company could give me less money, and I paid for $400 in extra repairs to the brakes and headlamps, and $200 for extra inspections and registration fees from the state of California.

"Totaling" and "salvaged registration" have very little to do with the extent of the damage to or condition of my car.

I drive a 1994 Corolla with 220,000 miles; I'd of had to have hit a shopping cart not to do more damage than the "value" of my car.

Even worse, once they declared it "totaled," the insurance company, USAA, fought me on the rental car benefit. Once it's "totaled" the 30 days of rental car benefit clearly stated on the front of my policy comes under some fine print further back and goes away. I have multiple policies with them, so I fought them to keep the car until my car was repaired, and to their credit, they did extend the benefit.

So here I am. Now I have the knowledge that if I *don't* carry collision insurance I won't get any money if my car is damaged, but I also won't get "totaled" and have to go through the financial and bureaucratic joy of "salvaged registration." Which by the way, pretty much negates the BS about salvaged registration being about car buyer protection. If I hadn't had collision insurance, my car wouldn't have been "salvaged." It would just be fixed. And further, the extent of the damage honestly wasn't that serious. I rearended a Lexus SUV at next to no miles per hour while sliding on a newly moist dusty road. I have a new hood, new headlamps, and a new radiator. It's not really what you think of when you hear a car was "totaled," although the repairs did come close to the appraised value of the car.

And, btw I was extremely fortunate to find - Thanks to Facebook - The Original Haskell's Auto Body in Chatsworth. Haskell really went above and beyond to help me get the car fixed as affordably as possible and through the brake and light inspection. Having a mechanic you have trust and confidence in: Priceless.

So, here I am. I feel like because of California salvage registration, I should drop my collision insurance. But, the thought of getting into an accident and not having collision insurance is terrifying.

The savings if I cancel my collision insurance is $25/month, which sadly, I could really use. That said, I wouldn't even consider canceling it if it weren't for the salvaged registration situation.

May 22, 2011

My friend Becca did a "100 Things I Love" list. Lists are always fun to do, but the reason I'm a big copycat here is that there were a few items on her list that are things I crazy love, too. Some of which I had no idea were mutual loves of ours.

So I am going to do my own 100 Things I Love list and simply leave in the ones we have in common in the same spot on the (certainly not-exhaustive and in no particular order) list.

I *love*...

Caramels

Ice cream

Candles

Coffee

Los Angeles

Water in all forms (for drinking and in the form of ponds, rivers, lakes, oceans... and even puddles... and bathtubs, and moisture in the air)

May 19, 2011

It's sobering to be looking at 40 with finances that spent the last two years resetting to 2002 thanks to unemployment and the joy of temping. Not completely, but still, it's pretty bad. Money's tight, and I've got a list of expenses I'd like to get through by the end of the year (dental work, car repairs, etc.). It's frustrating to feel so behind the curve. Money's coming in, slowly but surely, but then it's flying right back out.

Years ago, I used to say I was living a life where none of my dreams come true.

Now I say that all my "by 40" goals just became "by 50" goals. And that's... sobering. Focusing. And just the way it is.

But I've realized there's a pretty intense benefit to this feeling of having taken one step forward and two steps back.

Because I'm happy.

And if nothing major has changed in my life - still not a working director, still single, still broke - then there's absolutely no denying that what *has* changed, is me.

Like, A LOT.

I'm so changed, that when I look back and see my struggles, frustrations, and mistakes, I'm pretty well able to let it go and simply feel grateful to have gotten here. No matter the cost.

Well, OK, it would be cool to get my student loan out of forebearance. But, baby steps.

I'm not saying I've climbed every mountain. I've had some moments this year with my abandonment issues and lingering insecurities. I declared this year the Year Of No Fear, but sometimes it's like I simply forget for a beat.

I guess the easy way to explain what's going on with me is just a whole lot of release and prioritization and fun and gratefulness and faith (in myself, in the world). You know I put monthly quotes in my paper calendar, and this month I wrote this, which I got from a Facebook status update:

"If we can be truly patient, we never have any problems." Maezumi Roshi

I'm still working through some things - I like to think that all of us always are, to some extent - but what I seem to have gained is a patience I didn't have before (with myself, with the world). I'm grateful for all the good things in my life; I'm gratified to be working towards being my one, authentic self; I love where I live and work and what I do; and most important, I'm so happy to have good work to do every day, in the entertainment industry working on my own directing projects and other people's projects as well. I'm loving and living in every moment, and I'm working towards my goals however I can.

I'm happy to be here.

Making this the year I stopped living a life where none of my dreams come true, and started really Living The Dream.

January 11, 2011

My last lay off was in 2009. Since then I have been unemployed, taken a seasonal gig twice, and over the summer temped somewhere I thought would go permanent that didn't.

I think a lot about the hiring bias against the unemployed. I think a lot about my now floaty resume. I think a lot about the fact that I've been laid off twice now.

I've been told that historically speaking the perception is that during a layoff the best people are kept, so people who have been laid off are the less-thans. Today, some businesses have let the bias go, but others still have it. When you've been laid off twice and risen to the occasion by rolling with the punches, taking on new challenges, and generally working your ass off, all while weathering financial demise and demoralization with the most positive attitude you can muster, this can be frustrating.

I think about the fact that I've been laid off twice. I think about the fact that it is because I am loyal.

See, when your company is reorganizing and/or struggling, you ask people to hang on with you. You don't give raises or you cut salaries, you lay people off or cut hours, and you ask the people remaining to please stay.

I'm a stayer. I've been laid off twice because I don't leave easy. Before my first lay off I was investigating moving within the larger company, which probably made me a lay off target in my division, but actually I was the one trying to stay. Before my second lay off I was hoping to survive the bad times, but more importantly, I wasn't going to leave while they still needed me.

I stayed until the day I wasn't needed anymore. Because that's the kind of employee I am: Loyal.

It's beyond the pale to ask that of people and then harbor a bias against laid-off people. There's an entire segment of workers out here who are the stayers who were asked to leave.

So to every potential employer who looks at my resume and doesn't count my last two years and my two layoffs against me, Thank You. I say in interviews that whether I liked it or not, my two layoffs have made me a better employee. I've learned tons of new things, worked in a variety of environments, and learned to take on new challenges like never before.

Laid off people are the troopers. Looking for a new company to serve in.

I also feel incredibly lucky all the time. Lucky every day that I still have my apartment and my bed to come home to. Lucky for my health and my fitness. Lucky for friends and family and the incredible creative community in Los Angeles, even with all of our rough spots and flaws. Lucky to be free of old baggage and lucky to know what I want in life and what it looks like when I see it.

Lucky because I'm finally someone who can both believe in magic and someone who can easily shrug it off when it's not where I thought it might be.

Still working on understanding and shrugging off all the strange things people think and assume in this world, but I suspect that one is going to take me my entire lifetime. Another thing to be thankful for: Things to work on.

One thing I've been working on a lot the last few months is a little film called The Social Network. I've been living and breathing it and from it I am taking two bits of life wisdom (and a whole hell of a lot of filmmaking wisdom):

SEAN Do you live and breath Facebook?

and:

MARK (pause) Do you ever think about the girl?

SEAN What girl?

MARK The one--the girl in high school who was-- with the lacrosse thing.

SEAN (are you kidding?) No.

In short, I need to remind myself that what I want to live and breathe, when possible, are my various projects that I aim to direct. Priorities:

Health (gotta live for the long haul)

Finances (gotta pay the rent)

Projects, Projects, Projects

You know what's not in the top 3? Any time spent on romantic baggage.

Don't get me wrong. I will forever be a romantic, and I easily slip love into my priorities when it stops by and says hello. But when it says goodbye or simply doesn't say hello, then it's simply not there as something I care to focus my time and energy on.

Questions to self for 2011: "Do you live and breathe your projects?" and "What boy?"

The studio closes between Christmas and New Year's, so for my fabulous unpaid holiday I signed up for the new member special at InYoga Center in Valley Village: 15 days of unlimited yoga. I did four classes in eight days, whereas previously I'd never done more than 1 in a week. It was intense and such an awesome thing for what turned out to be a bit of a rollercoaster week full of good work, good friends, and some boy drama.

New Year and... What boy?

One of my yoga teachers read this poem by Rumi in class, and I will leave you with it, because it pretty much sums up my entire worldview. It is my theme for 2011 and beyond.

Not Here

There's courage involved if you wantto become truth. There is a broken-

open place in a lover. Where arethose qualities of bravery and sharp

compassion in this group? What's theuse of old and frozen thought? I want

a howling hurt. This is not a treasurywhere gold is stored; this is for copper.